Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday May 15, 2014 @07:46AM
from the hang-onto-your-bits dept.

finalcutmonstar (1862890) writes "With net neutrality dying a slow painful death, it is no surprise that in an investor call yesterday Comcast executive VP(and Darth Vader impersonator) David Cohen predicts bandwidth caps within the next 5 years. The cap would start at 300 GB and cost the customer subscriber an extra 10 USD for 50 GB. But, Cohen stated that 'I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan.'"Update: 05/15 13:58 GMT by T: Correction: Cohen is actually talking about data transferred, rather than stored (as headline originally had it), as reader MAXOMENOS points out.

More like 'You only want our ISP service and not cable TV? Well, not only are we going to charge the company that you do get your videos from, but we are going to charge you extra for delivering them. Oh hey, notice how much cheaper OUR video service is, are you sure you don't want it instead?'

If my entire state has hundreds of ISP's, but the block I live on is restricted to just one ISP; that to me is still a monopoly! If any ISP has a significant portion of their business market limited to only their own networks(and no, dial-up DOES NOT count as an alternative ISP), that too would be a monopoly that needs badly to be broken up and/or regulated.
It seems like a vast majority of people do not understand how much tax money these giant ISP's have gotten for upgrading their networks with little

A free market presumes competition, and it presumes regulation against perverse incentives. Neither are the case here, where cable companies are granted de-facto monopolies over geographic regions, and where the majority of traffic being carried on the internet is increasingly in direct competition with the cable company's video offerings.

It's why, while I do have sympathy for a properly functioning free market (with competition and no perverse incentives), I have no sympathy for cable companies trying to argue that it's their hardware, they should be able to do what they want. Yes, it's their hardware--but they've been granted regional monopolies. That strongly implies that they have no leg to stand on when they argue 'free markets' to bypass regulations being imposed on their networks.

A free market presumes competition, and it presumes regulation against perverse incentives. Neither are the case here... That strongly implies that they have no leg to stand on when they argue 'free markets' to bypass regulations being imposed on their networks.

I think you're restating what parent wrote (only in more detail):

Make the market free so there is someplace else to go

I believe we're all in agreement that cable companies clamoring for "free market" are hypocrites, as there has never really been a free market for communication service providers, and it's amusing (yet sad, since it's often effective) to see the rent seekers that cry "free market" and "deregulation" only when it benefits them. Govt-subsidized and sanctioned monopolies and duopolies aren't capitalism, and neither is the collusion that results when the barrier to entry is so large due to these monopolies.

If they really want a "free market" and "deregulation", then they shouldn't be opposed to more open (unlicensed) spectrum, rather than allowing the FCC to auction frequency blocks off to the highest bidder. They also shouldn't ask for public handouts to "build rural infrastructure" and then completely renege on their contractual obligations through legal loopholes and shell games.

My solution is, and will continue to be, last mile is owned by Municipality. Bring it into a centralize COLO facility, and provide access (by auction) to the top 5 bidders., each given exactly the same space. This way, a residential unit (household) can go to the five, request prices / services and pick the one they like the best. The COLO configures the switch and the residential unit is serviced with exactly what they want, at a price they can shop against.

The problem isn't last mile, that problem has been solved. The problem is servicing the last mile in a way that allows for competition. COLO is the only way to provide open and free marketplace to the customers AND providers.

But this requires a shift from leased right of ways to Municipal Managed last mile.

Joshua Steimle just wrote a mind-boggling anti-neutrality article at Forbes [forbes.com]. It's a perfect example of the hypocrisy you're talking about. He whines about government intervention = BAD, but then completely ignores the fact that bigass monopolies acting against the public interest is also bad. It is not "free market" when companies are given government subsidies (AKA tax breaks), rights of way, and spectrum licenses. You didn't hear radio stations talking about "free market" back during the pirate radio days, now did you?

Honestly, I wouldn't have any problem with non-neutral networks if there was competition. Those of us who cared would flock to net neutral competitors, or competitors whose QOS favored our packets of choice. Let's face it, this is an area that just cries out for a natural monopoly. And just about every economist agrees that natural monopolies must be heavily regulated to function in the public's best interest.

Obviously you don't actually understand what we have been complaining about. The complaints are all about the speed advertised as being 50mbps when in reality you could never possibly get better than 5mbps up or down. These are about not getting what you are paying for, not that they can't physically provide the advertised speed (though in most cases this is actually true).

Bandwidth is a totally different story. The amount of data you send down a line is divorced from the speed in which you send it. The

Maybe I am in the minority but i find it *very* acceptable. Coincidentally the figures they are bandying about are very close to how my tariff works.

I use AAISP in the UK. I switched to them on the premise they delver 'unfiltered' internet. They also don't do that 'unlimited' internet crap. All in all they are what anyone here with half a brain *should* want from their ISP. (technically savvy too)

Their base no-extras package give you 100GB a month, You can also pay for 200GB or 300GB up front for a slightly reduced rate, if you go over you get auto billed for another 50GB at Â£10.

Sure its not the cheapest internet, and it means I have to use ADSL (around 60-80meg, with the occasional very short outage) vs cable (150meg with virtually zero downtime in the 13 years I was with them)

im not shilling and I don't want your sign up bonus. I just want to make sure everyone knows about them so they never go away!

You're right, so long as you don't actually use your connection, caps aren't a problem.

Of course, if you don't do any of that, then a basic ADSL connection would be just fine and 10 years ago is calling.

-------------

We cut DirecTV off 4 months ago, we are a 100% streaming home now.

We have 5, the kids often watch something on the iPad, mom and dad are on the TV, etc. between Netflix, Amazon Prime videos, Vudu, we use a lot of bandwidth, and that will only go up once 4k streaming comes out.

Then the PS3 is downloading patches and updates in the background, as is the multiple Windows computers, and every month or so the iPads update as well.

Heck, our new Sony 3D TV has had three software updates itself in 6 months.

Then there is backups, I use two backup programs, Crashplan and Backblaze, to backup our family videos, pictures, and documents, it is about 6TB worth of data (2x of course)

Then there is steam, I have many, many games on Steam, and they have lots and lots of patches that auto update.

Then there is online play, SWTOR probably doesn't use tons and tons of bandwidth, but running for a few hours probably uses a decent amount, and they have patches to download every two weeks or so.

We easily use multiple terabytes of data in a month, and not a single byte of it is pirated. We are also not that unusual, many families are cutting the cord, our friends have dropped cable or sat TV and went to all streaming. They have XBoxes and PS3s, and computers that update, etc...

300gb is either a lot, or not nearly enough, depending on your situation.

In all fairness, why should you get 2TB of bandwidth for the same price as the other 90% who are using 500GB?
That's a significant difference. You should pay more.

Granted you probably are, because you probably have a faster connection. I think if they are going to cap, the cap should be larger for faster connections. If I buy a 3/1, it should be around 300gb, if I by a 15/5, it should be 5 times as much data too.

In all fairness, why should you get 2TB of bandwidth for the same price as the other 90% who are using 500GB?

Because this encourages people to use more bandwidth. When people use more bandwidth, it encourages investment in infrastructure. When infrastructure is invested in, speeds get faster for everyone.

I never understood the argument for conservation of bandwidth. Sure, we could start nickle and diming everyone for each bit they push. That would indeed put downward pressure on the amount of traffic flowing across these links, which should in turn stave off any need to upgrade the infrastructure. Is that what we want? Why?

It does not cost Comcast $10 to deliver another 50GB of data after the first 300GB has been delivered.

The real cost is in running the line to the house and setting up service in the first place. Beyond that there is a forever lower cost per bit.

If it were $10 per month per TB of data, I'd have no problem with that. $10 per month for 50GB is just absurd, Call of Duty Ghosts on the PS4 is almost that large.

As it stands, I pay $100 a month to Verizon to provide me with 150/65 service, if I'm really such a burden to them, they could charge me $10 more a month per TB and I could be ok with that, it is a reasonable charge for data.

At $10 per 50GB, they might as well just cancel my service and say "we're not interested", since that is what would happen.

In all fairness, why should you get 2TB of bandwidth for the same price as the other 90% who are using 500GB? That's a significant difference. You should pay more.

Simple answer? Because I have an ISP [teksavvy.com] that knows how to manage traffic responsibly. Sadly you guys in the US don't, see up here in Canadaland Teksavvy has this program called ZTC or Zap The Cap. [teksavvy.com] What happens is, between 8pm to 12am you get a reduction in download speed and the rest of the time you can download as much as you want. But if you don't want to use it, you can always schedule your downloads for 2am-6am I think the time frame is, and there's no cap then during that period anyway.

In all fairness, why should you get 2TB of bandwidth for the same price as the other 90% who are using 500GB?
That's a significant difference. You should pay more.
Granted you probably are, because you probably have a faster connection. I think if they are going to cap, the cap should be larger for faster connections. If I buy a 3/1, it should be around 300gb, if I by a 15/5, it should be 5 times as much data too.

Bandwidth isn't data transfer. I pay for bandwidth. Bandwidth is data/time. If I'm paying for 20Mb/sec, what difference does it make if I download 20MB/month or 60TB/Month? Unless, of course, you have some sort of alternate agenda (like making it much harder to use media from the Internet rather than from the cable TV part of your business, or to restrict your customers from getting the service they've contracted and paid for). Since we already pay for the bandwidth, why shouldn't we be allowed to use it to its fullest? Just because many people don't use what they already pay for, why should those who do be penalized?

Better than what I've got. 25 down, 5 up, $62 per month (with 100 down, 20 up available for $100/month from the same ISP). Other parts of my area have DSL at up to 6 down 1 up for about $35/month, but I'm not in range for that. Mobile has tiny bandwidth limits (and the unlimited ones can't match even the DSL connection's speed). Satellite has about the same drawbacks as mobile, except that it also costs more. Even what I have has a 250GB soft-cap (they'll send you letters when you go over, but I haven't hea

Unless you're downloading games regularly, watching high def videos online, or torrenting stuff, data caps should never be a problem.

The trouble is a lot of people are now doing most of the above. People who aren't don't care about caps, since they'll never get close to 100gb a month without those three.

That's not really true. One of the big issues that no one is talking about (which is the real promise of an open/unfettered Internet) is that data caps (as well as server port blocking) limit the ability of the individual content producer (reasonably priced video recording equipment exists at prices that an individual can afford) to make their content widely available. That is a threat to the content providers who control the broadband internet services.

That's not really true. One of the big issues that no one is talking about (which is the real promise of an open/unfettered Internet) is that data caps (as well as server port blocking) limit the ability of the individual content producer (reasonably priced video recording equipment exists at prices that an individual can afford) to make their content widely available. That is a threat to the content providers who control the broadband internet services.

This is worth highlighting and elaborating on. Comcast reps have said before that data/streaming (like comcast on-demand) that you pull from Comcast's network will not count towards the bandwidth cap. Now they might counter that the cap is intended to reduce the stresses on their peering links with the rest of the Internet, so internal stuff -shouldn't- count. That may even be true, but they have also denied Netflix's offers to place Netflix caching servers within Comcast's network to reduce the stresses th

An Internet provider should not be a content provider; there is an inherent conflict of interest. Forget Comcast's takeover of Cox, Comcast's actions against its competitors are the real problem here. The US needs an end to the local cable/telco monopolies/duopolies.

Absolutely. I'd go even further and say that the "last mile" owners, shouldn't be ISPs either.

Data caps don't hurt uploads in basically all cases. Even in outside cases, there will be more down than up.

And that will be true when I'm offering my feature-length movie for sale as a download? My point is that everything these guys are doing is to maintain their power and monopoly to keep out competition. Do you believe competition is a bad thing?

That's strange. I host three different domains off of my residential Internet connection.

IMHO, this is because my ISP is not a content provider and has no incentive to limit their customer's access to the Internet. The TCP/IP suite of protocols (surprise!) was, despite the usage model that has been forced down most folks' throats, not designed to be exclusively client/server.

The problem is that most people don't realize the power and control they *could* have if they were given the opportunity. The Internet is, perhaps, the ultimate free speech mechanism, but we allow our corporate overlords to keep us from realizing its potential, with, among other things, the abusive contracts you mention.

More importantly, why is it that the ISPs that are content providers (whether they be cable companies or resellers of cable/satellite TV (like Verizon), restrict you from running servers? There are some good reasons to limit SMTP servers, as it's an insecure mechanism (despite strides that have been made vis a vis STARTTLS, SPF, Domain Key, etc.) which can be easily handled by routing emails through the ISP's SMTP servers. However, other than that, there is no inherent reason that servers should be restricted.

The ISPs that do this do so to protect the content distribution ends of their business, and to reduce their costs (not passed on to their customers, thank you very much) by throttling upload. That's not to say that users who wish to increase their upload bandwidth shouldn't pay for it, but other than the fact that ISPs want to control content (whether it be blogs, family websites, legitimate media distribution, or the "next big thing") and continue rent-seeking behavior without investing in infrastructure, there is no reason to throttle upload.

Granted, technologies like ADSL have those limitations built in (allowing ISPs to rape users for SDSL links), but fiber (as with Verizon FIOS) and other broadband mechanisms, have no such limitations, other than those imposed by those with a vested interest in imposing such limitations.

You say I have no point. I say that as long as you take the shit on rye you're being given, while being told it's prime rib, you are denying the real promise of the Internet. Can you say Stockholm Syndrome [wikipedia.org]? Sure you can. I knew you could. [with apologies to Fred Rogers]

Your contract doesn't allow you to host servers (especially for commercial use) in your residential connection. So, you don't have a point.

Oh, and who said anything about commercial use? There are a myriad of applications (political speech, collaborative creative activity, social networking without personal data theft, intellectual interchanges, family communications and on and on) that can benefit from upload speeds/server hosting that have no commercial implications at all.

I have no issue with commercial vs. residential tiering. I do have a problem with restrictive and abusive corporate policies that limit speech, creativity and liberty.

Unless you're downloading games regularly, watching high def videos online, or torrenting stuff, data caps should never be a problem.

The trouble is a lot of people are now doing most of the above. People who aren't don't care about caps, since they'll never get close to 100gb a month without those three.

The problem is that the hogs of today are examples of what the average customer could be doing 10 years from now.

10 years ago, 3 Mbps down/384 kbps up DSL was widespread. Streaming video was uncommon. There was no YouTube, and Facebook was exclusive to Harvard. Windows XP SP2 was not yet released. Perhaps a 10GB cap would have been reasonable, and data hogs would pay exorbitant prices for cable.

Now, "selfie" is a thing. My chattering devices are constantly looking to communicate with Google (Android), Apple (iOS and MacOS), and Microsoft (Windows Update). I probably go right past 50GB regularly, and I don't do Netflix. This has been enabled by the relentless falling prices of Internet transit. [fiercetelecom.com] (Historical trends [drpeering.net]) Games, Netflix, and BitTorrent aren't the only things pushing bandwidth usage up.

So, it's alarming to see a Comcast exec, proposing in 5 years to limit the Internet to the Internet of today. He wants to stop progress. It's especially galling because he's already double-dipping. He's trying to triple-dip. He's charging consumers for the cable Internet connection, he's charging Netflix for access to those consumers, and now he wants to charge again to use that connection that 2 parties have already paid for.

I don't have a problem with capped internet. I know, it's heresy to many people here, but I really don't. The marginal cost for bandwidth isn't zero and no amount of wishing by Slashdotters will make it so. It makes sense that there's a mechanism in place to limit the impact of heavy users on lighter, if they're both paying the same costs.

Of course, having said that, I fully expect Comcast to go about implementing a theoretically sensible idea in the most discriminatory, expensive, heavy-handed, and frustrating way possible. What the hell is wrong with those guys?

It's Comcast. You can have the month that's right after December and right before January. We'll call it Comcastuary. It lasts one femtosecond. It's a short month, but you can download as much as you want while it lasts. No bandwidth cap.

I don't know why it is worded this way. He's "predicting" that Comcast is going to implement caps for all their subscribers in a few years.

Most other people would phrase it as "a plan".

Predictions are for when you have no/little control over the outcome. I could predict Comcast will have usage caps [as I live in another country and have no real influence over the outcome]. But an executive at Comcast is planning to implement usage caps, because he works there and is actively trying to make it happen.

1. Void all local agreements giving exclusive access to a community to one internet provider.2. Mandate that they are able to accommodate ALL the bandwidth they sell at any time.3. Separate the businesses into a content side and a Access Provider side. Content side pays the same as all other content providers. Access Provider charges the same to all Content Providers.4. NO limits on what you can do with your bandwidth.

2. Mandate that they are able to accommodate ALL the bandwidth they sell at any time.

We already have this. Go look up leasing a T3 connection for your home; Guaranteed 44Mb line. Expect to pay several thousand dollars per month.

Your home broadband connection is oversold, and that's fine. That's why it's cheap, and it is very cheap. The problem is that they didn't tell you that that was how it was, and instead sold you on "up to $Mb download speed". Now that there are services that will actually saturate your 20Mb line 24/7 (bittorrent, netflix, whatever) the connections are congested. It's like putting all of the cars on the motorway at once; Nobody will get anywhere.

If the model was shifted to paying for the data you use regardless of your line speed, at least it would be fair; You get what you pay for, no more, no less. I watch netflix, I download ISOs and games on Steam, and I rarely hit north of 150GB in a month. This scheme seems fine to me. Then again, I'm looking at this through the rose-tinted glasses of a consumer, not a greedy corporate sociopath. I'm sure they'll have us bent over again soon enough.

If the model was shifted to paying for the data you use regardless of your line speed, at least it would be fair; You get what you pay for, no more, no less.

Charging by amount of data transmitted doesn't necessarily make it "fair". Sometimes it isn't the amount of data that matters but the speed at which you get it. I don't use a huge amount of data but when I dial into a VPN, latency and other speed issues matter. Data that doesn't arrive in a timely manner can be useless. Furthermore the cost of transmitting a unit of data is not a linear cost. The price for Comcast to transmit 10MB of data is not double what it costs to transmit 5MB of data to the same

It's not arbitrary; Everyone north of Tier 1 providers pay per gigabyte of data they transfer over Tier 1 backbones. T1 don't pay each other because they agree to transfer each other's data without charging ("Peering agreements"). Paying per gigabyte is how the internet actually works; The speed is limited only by the hardware.

Everyone north of Tier 1 providers pay per gigabyte of data they transfer over Tier 1 backbones.

The cost per gigabyte of data is a relatively small percent of the cost incurred by companies like Comcast. Comcast's gross margins are somewhere around 70% and the cost per gigabyte would properly be accounted for under Cost of Goods Sold (also called Cost of Revenue - second line on the income statement under Revenue). Comcast's net margins are around 10% which means that the cost of moving data cannot account for more than around 30% of their expenses even if every penny of COGS was used to pay for data - which it definitely is not. In reality the real number as a percent of their total expense is probably somewhere around 10-15% at most. It's not trivial but it is a small percentage of what they actually pay out each period.

Paying per gigabyte is how the internet actually works;

I assure you that the cost per gigabyte is only a relatively minor portion of the costs involved and realistically it's not the biggest one. Don't confuse revenue models with cost models. Most of the actual cost of the internet (far in excess of 50%) is in hardware, maintenance, electricity, sales and overhead. All of these are fixed costs, unaffected by your data usage. Don't take my word for it, look on their financial statements yourself.

Charging by usage is an invented pricing scheme pure and simple. It costs no more or less for Comcast to have data running over a line (not even the cost of electricity.. once it's on it's on). I can leave my TV on 24/7/365 (100% usage) and pay the exact same amount if I had left it off for an entire year. Hell, I could add 5 more TVs (each with their own box) and leave those on year round and it would still do nothing to my bill [outside of the boxes].

The internet, that you when you click on the blue "e", that's your cloud. You can only store so much on your cloud. Every time you browse, you store more and more in the your cloud. If you store to much water in the cloud, the tubes of the internet will leak.

That's why we need to cap the amount of water you store in there. Especially Netflix. They steal water from your cloud, and pump too much storage in. So we had to build a dam, to store water and generate Net Neutrality. That's how the Market moves.

Yes! And that's why we're all drowning in a deluge of data. This data distribution downpour must be diverted!

Damn it, Netflix! Why can't you just let Comcast own everything? Then we'll have only have 300 GB of data deluge to deal with each month. Dry as a data desert - baked brown in the wires before coming to a TV near you!

I suspect this has less to do with prediction, and more to do with prescription.
As in, they want to set up the expectations that will guide the perceptions of the public and of policymakers in regards to what is a "reasonable" amount of bandwidth to be consuming, in order to justify their ridiculous overage charges.

Don't worry USA, Canada is right there along with you. 250 GB would be welcome. The two major ISPs offer bandwidth caps between 25 GB and 125 GB on "reasonably priced" packages (under $70). Rogers recently introduced the option to upgrade your bandwidth cap, but you still can't get unlimited for less than $85. To go from 70 GB on a 30 Mbit connection to 270 GB on the same speed will cost you an extra $15 a month. Personally, I'm glad they opened up the lines to independent ISPs, or I think it would be e

Canada has freemarketitis, courtesy of a parliamentary system that invests a man with 15% of the popular vote to maintain an iron grip on the federal government for the foreseeable future. The damage that bastard and his neocon friends are doing. Damn.

my GF and I regularly exceeded 300GB a month as of a couple of years ago.

Lots of video games are going to be >50 GB for 'next gen' and 20 or 30 is going to be the norm for anything from a major publisher. 4k resolution displays and streaming for multiple users and 300 GB doesn't go very far.

Those who regulate their telephone sector strongly, and those who don't. The US is in the latter category, and the majority are going to suffer for it. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not in the US. I feel for you guys.

When I canceled my Comcast subscription due to the cap, the person handling the call explicitly told me there was no legitimate reason for that kind of usage so I must be a pirate. When I tried to politely explain that my Netflix usage exceeded that, I was again told there was not legitimate reason for the kind of usage.

So true... and they'll ignore the obvious stuff like Netflix, Steam, and the other modern e-business models that have greatly increased our average monthly bandwidth. I'm in Canada and I got tired of paying Rogers (AT&T) $68 a month for a 120GB cap, only to habitually over-step that line (I'm a habitual line-stepper, as Charlie Murphy would say) and get charged up to $100 more - thankfully laws prevent them from charging any more than $100 extra per month, but that's still $168 in a month just for internet. I've recently switched to Acanac where I'm paying less than $50 for the same speeds with no cap. Hopefully US customers will be able to find smaller/independant ISPs that offer something similar... switching away from the big guys when they make stupid moves like this is the only way to ge the message across - vote with your dollar! Don't be shy to sign online petitions and send out emails to politians on the upcoming bill they have to vote on, too.

Caps will definitely come. Not because they are "needed to help manage network congestion" or some other reason that the ISPs will trot out. They'll come for four simple reasons.

1) Video over the Internet threatens their own video services. Caps help make Internet video more expensive (via overage fees) and will help drive people away from Internet video.

2) Even if people use Internet video, the ISPs will get more money and they can never resist the smell of money.

3) The ISPs have monopolies (or near monopolies) in their service areas so they can do whatever they want and the public needs to take it.

4) They are big and powerful enough that they will make sure they have enough politicians "donated to" to prevent any government action against them.

Of course, they will keep on trotting out the "small group of users is slowing everyone's speeds down and caps will make them pay their fair share" line to justify the caps. The real cause of any slowdown will be because they take their profits and don't reinvest them into upgrading their networks. After all, why upgrade? It's not like there are any competitors to beat in the market or any government officials with backbone to pressure them into speeding up connections.

Interesting thought though would be that if you have a content provider who is also your ISP, could that be considered monopolistic similar to what Microsoft went through with IE being included with the OS?

Yes, but media companies and telcos have lobbying power well beyond what Microsoft could muster, and the current political climate is hostile to taking on monopolies because 'the market knows best'. There is also a school of thought (I am curious what blogger or author started it, but it seems to have really taken off) that monopolies only exist because of government and thus if you want to prevent monopolies all you have to do is remove regulations.

There is the issue of certain services being 'natural monopolies'. How many power companies do you want running power lines to your home in order to offer you power service? Network companies running fiber, cable, or coax to offer you the Internet? Water? Sewer?

See, when something requires the customer to receive not just the service but also build infrastructure through other people's property to deliver it to them, most people realize that allowing many companies to build that infrastructure is a disruptive pain. Since we don't have the core infrastructure built so that such cables can be laid without disrupting someone else's property, the trade-off has been a limited number of contenders in an area. You can argue whether that's right or not, or if there are better ways, but that is what the compromise was in order to allow for the service and yet not be a disruption.

Personally, I see local infrastructure like power lines, fiber, coax, cable, etc as just like roads. Who maintains your roads? Anyone that provides a service using those roads can do so without disruption, and the entity that owns them maintains them and permits access. They generally have no vested interest in extorting excess money out of the users of those roads, but do charge them for use. Other aspects of our infrastructure could be similarly maintained and we would solve the 'local monopoly' issue while minimizing disruption.

lol, as entertaining as these conspiracy theories are, I can't help but blow my karma correcting uniformed nonsense.

The vast majority of ISPs in this country do not offer any (or very little) TV service at all.

The majority of the money you pay for your cable television goes to the the content providers and re-transmit fees. Local stations re-transmit fees are huge. The ISPs make the most money off services. Like voip, cloud storage, antivirus, DVRs, equipment rentals, etc...

The vast majority of ISPs in this country do not have the vast majority of customers. The vast majority of end users (you know - ma and pa Facebook user) are on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner (soon to be Comcast). Comcast and Time Warner are content providers as well as bandwidth providers. Verizon and AT&T are the old phone company monopolies (AT&T and GTE). With that oligarchy of companies, policies and pricing set will drive the market. As far as the majority of money going to fees - the last year each of the companies mentioned didn't exactly have losses or even just make a couple bucks. Record profits - not quite.. but definitely in the range so the race to the bottom is still putting the gold plate on the swimming pools. As far as streaming - how many of those Facebook posts have videos attached to them? 25 cute cat doing something adorable videos a day will start to knock on those bandwidth caps fairly quickly. And lately those videos don't require you to click on them to start - they run quietly in the background and you don't notice them until you turn up the sound.

Don't mix up business users with consumers - different animals with different use patterns. And for a history - look at cell phone - and land line usage. (wondering if you're old enough to remember when calling cross-country was a once a month thing to talk to grandma instead of doing so on a whim)

The vast majority of ISPs in this country do not offer any (or very little) TV service at all.

And the vast majority of "ISPs" in this country are not relevant to the vast majority of Americans, as they service tiny and highly localized markets. Most markets are served by some form of the telephone/cable company duopoly, both of which offer TV, DVRs and soon streaming services.

The majority of the money you pay for your cable television goes to the the content providers and re-transmit fees. Local stations re-transmit fees are huge. The ISPs make the most money off services. Like voip, cloud storage, antivirus, DVRs, equipment rentals, etc...

If it would be a money-losing proposition, ISPs would get out of the business of offering TV. Somehow, neither Comcast nor ATT are doing that.

Despite this, every ISP that I've worked with over the past 5 years or so has bandwidth cap projects going now. It's coming to everyone, everywhere. regardless of if your ISP provides TV or not.

Of course. It's an awesome way of making sure that you maximize your revenue while minimizing your investment. Bandwidth caps are awesome for ISPs. They suck for customers. The reason they are coming everywhere should tell you something about the competitiveness of the market.

They're locked in a race to the bottom with prices. Customers always go with the cheapest provider, so they can't afford infrastructure improvements without cutting themselves out of the market.

You mean, there's actual competition in the market? I haven't seen actual competition in one of the heaviest populated areas in the US since.... well, ever. The only options were Comcast (sometimes), ATT (always), and maybe an ATT DSL reseller, whose main line during issues was "Sorry, we know this, but ATT won't fix their lines."

Most customers are like your parents.

If that would be true, Netflix wouldn't see the growth it does. Plus, there's a huge opportunity for remote doctor's visits that isn't taking off because most plans offer a measly 1Mb up.

The sizzlers trying to narrow the front door so we can't get in.

You missed the part where there's only two food places in town, both are colluding in making smaller doors, and both are offering slightly larger doors at rapidly increasing prices.

You make a good point. However, this isn't universal. First of all, as the proverbial fat guy at an all-you-can-eat buffet, I've already chosen pay a higher price for significantly more bandwidth than my neighbors. I have an expectation that I have full access to that. I am also lucky enough to have a choice in ISP's where I live. I cancelled my capped service for a more expensive (and even faster) uncapped service. It's not a hard-and-fast rule, but I'm willing to pay more for a bigger plate - I just

Simply threatening them with competition isn't enough. Even if an FCC chairman grew enough of a backbone to challenge the big ISPs (and the whole corrupt system didn't stop him), where is this competition coming from? It's a nebulous threat that, without serious changes, will be taken as seriously as threatening to fine someone a bajillion dollars. Even the "can't merge if it reduces competition" won't work because, technically, Comcast and Time Warner Cable don't compete. The big ISPs have carved up th

The cap would start at 300 GB and cost the customer subscriber an extra 10 USD for 50 GB. But, Cohen stated that 'I would also predict that the vast majority of our customers would never be caught in the buying the additional buckets of usage, that we will always want to say the basic level of usage at a sufficiently high level that the vast majority of our customers are not implicated by the usage-based billing plan.'"

Comcast sent me an email late last year saying they would change my data usage agreement to the above.

You've got lots of people just getting Internet to download/watch TV rather than buying it via the cable company. They have to recoup that revenue somehow. It's either going to be data caps or they'll flip the model they currently have and charge $75 for Internet access and $25 for a full cable lineup. Then another $50 in regulatory 'fees' and other BS and you're back to where you started.

Thing is, Comcast is so insanely profitable they have no need to 'recoup their revenue'. They do not have some magic entitlement to such profits, esp when they get them in part by promising service levels they can not actually provide.

Thing is, Comcast is so insanely profitable they have no need to 'recoup their revenue'. They do not have some magic entitlement to such profits, esp when they get them in part by promising service levels they can not actually provide.

With the rise of Google Fiber and increasing usage via legitimate services such as Netflix online (not to mention what happens when 4K kicks in, arguably within 5 years?), HULU, and HD video conferencing, this prediction looks to be terribly off-base.

No, no. This is just some idiot CEO for an awful company completely misunderstanding the nature of his own business and making and horribly inaccurate and hamfisted prediction.

Then again, he probably makes 500 times what I make, so I guess he must be doing something right!

Google Fiber is unlikely to cover all that much actual territory, and it is not going to cut into Comcast's space enough to really change their situation. As for the rest of those, those uses are exactly why the prediction is probably not off, those are things that Comcast wants to stop and this would be a way to hurt those other companies.

Time to split their nostrils open with a boathook [wikipedia.org] just like we did to the Bell system. We did it once, we should do it again.I mean, that solved all our problems once and for all, right? That's when the internet started taking off for the public.

He knows his business very well. This is how they can get around net neutrality and maintaing package deals. It's already happening with mobile providers here in Austria. They set up agreements with external services or provide their own (usually video on demand). Those are then exempt from the data cap.

Right now there are still some alternatives, but since the two cheapest providers merged prices have gone up and data caps have become the norm.

I predict in 5 years ill have a laundry list of null routes for various advertising providers and comcast hardware. I'll torrent every show and every song because to listen to them again on pandora will put me over my 'cap.' I'll have constructed a cantenna out of an array of garbage cans strapped to the roof of my house and have an army of ASIC hardware working round the clock to crack every WPA and WEP AP i see.

Oh, and I'll switch to dryline DSL and robocall every politician in my state asking for municipal high speed fiber. I and everyone youve ever infuriated with deep packet traffic shaping 'its comcastic' advertising blitzkreig will petition our government to bury you as we boycott your shit-tier service.

They just refuse to tell anyone what it is, or give you any warning that you have violated it before they disconnect you.

The thing that is most amusing about these people is that, out of one side of their mouths they whine about how they don't have the capacity to give everyone truly unlimited Internet like they advertise, but out of the other side they have as much as anyone is willing to pay for, with no limit.

It really is time to label Internet service as a public utility and place it under proper regulation.

Usage caps (not storage caps) have absolutely ZERO to do with net neutrality. First off, they're explicitly allowed under the rules that the FCC tried to put in place, that were recently shot down by the courts. Secondly, even if the FCC were to reclassify broadband under Title II (i.e. as a telecom service), as a lot of tech companies want them to, they'd STILL be allowed. Voice phone service, which has long been regulated on the same terms that many want the FCC to use for broadband, certainly allows for usage caps, always has.

The difference is that phone services are much more severely constrained by the physics associated with radio bandwidth.

There is no doubt that many readers here would be harmed by a 300 GB bandwidth limit. There have been times when I've moved multiple terabytes per month between my home office and workplace. Cloud services such as CrashPlan can potentially push traffic above such limits as well.

The time has come to regulate these services, or remove all restraints preventing competition. The current state

David Cohen - Comcast Corporation - EVP:"we are not sure we know what paid prioritization or what a fast lane is...I think a fast lane sounds bad. But since we don't know what it is, or what the definitions of it are, it's a little bit hard to be able to react to it...I believe that whatever it is, a fast lane, paid prioritization, whatever you want to call it, has been completely legal for 15 or 20 years....Our offer is to comply with the 2010 FCC Open Internet Order, which did not prohibit paid prioritization."

"there is nothing in Title II that provides authority for saying that all services have to be treated the same. In fact the whole history of Title II has been that telecom carriers regulated under Title II are absolutely allowed to provide different levels of service for different amounts of money. Think about Bell's providing different level of service to businesses versus residences."

"There is the last mile market where we as an ISP deliver content to our customers and charge customers for that content and they access the Internet by going through Comcast as an ISP. And there is what I'd call a first mile market, which is the way in which the Internet at large, the Internet Edge providers, content providers, get their content onto our network to be able to be consumed by our consumers."

"The open Internet debate is about that first market. It's about the last mile market and it's about treating, making sure that consumers have an open and unfettered access to all of the content on the Internet, that there is no blocking, there is no discrimination in the way in which they get access to that content. The old extreme example, when a consumer types into her browser www.barnesandnoble.com, she should not be directed to Amazon because we have a deal with Amazon that says we will direct any book-related search to your site. That was the original extreme example of how we as ISPs could disrupt the Internet and could violate a principle of net neutrality.And in this day and age it would relate to a consumer being able to get advertised speeds and excess whatever content the consumer wanted through those advertised speeds. The interconnection market is a completely different market and it functions in a different way. It is a market that it would argue is intensely competitive."

"I think the ISP market is competitive but the interconnection market is intensely competitive. There are dozens of very large players in that space who are selling transit services. The competition is so intense in that market that the pricing in the interconnection market has dropped 99% in the last 15 years."

"And so among the dozens of large players here, Comcast alone has 40 companies with which we have settlement-free peering. That is we don't pay them anything, they don't pay us anything because our traffic is roughly in balance. And there was a time when Netflix was using Akamai, Level 3 then Cogent and their traffic was in balance with our traffic."

"So there was no way in that model for us to collect anything without completely disrupting the business model and structure of the interconnection market, which I think would be a mistake to do. So I think that the right way to do this is to use usage-based billing and do it on the last mile and to do it in a fair and non-discriminatory fashion. And I think that is the way you can deliver the equity proposition that heavier users pay more and lighter users pay less."

"Reed's argument that he should have free transit, and it is a Cogent argument as well, that there should be free transit is just a cost shifting argument. That's an argument there is cost for transit providers, content delivery, networks, other transit providers to connect to our network. There is a cost to that.And if Netflix doesn't bear its share of those costs to connect to the network then we have no choice but to raise prices for everyone else. Even though Netflix is responsible for one-third of the traffic on the Internet at peak times, tha

Have you seen what has happened because of the Google Fiber rollout? Here in Austin, you have AT&T scrambling to match the offer after the mere ANNOUNCEMENT by Google that they intended to offer service, and now there's a local ISP called Grande doing the same (although they already had a few fiber rings around the city to service their business customers, so their entry into the fight was a simple choice). That's right, with nothing other than a statement of intent, we have a virtual land race for uncapped near-gigabit internet for under $80 a month. If that's not competitive economics at work, I don't know what is.

The only thing I don't like about Google fibre from what I've seen is the pricing. Putting it at $80 a month makes it unaffordable for many of the low income homes. They have a lower speed option which I believe is only 5Mbit, which is actually decent, if you can find the money for the upfront costs. This seems to vary by location. It would be nice if they offered something in the middle for around $20-$30 a month which had a better amount of bandwidth, like 20 or 30 Mbit. Although I suspect if they did t

In Kansas City Google will give you a free 5 Mbps connection. That's enough to do most things you'd want to do on-line like email, Web browsing, even streaming video. I would think that would cover most people who can't afford the $20-$30 a month.

Some satellite ISPs do something similar, turning off the meter during early morning. In any case, running the meter at only congested times would at least help bring home Internet plans closer to widespread transit billing practice, which is based on the 95th percentile of speed over the course of a month.

The problem is that home users aren't willing to pay for a a guaranteed speed, unlimited usage line which is how the ISPs actually pay for their bandwidth, and how datacenters pay for their bandwidth. What they really want is a high speed line that is only in use for a few hours a day, and for the rest of the day is completely dormant. This is because most of the bandwidth is consumed using streaming services, and everybody is home during the same time. The 95th percentile doesn't really work for home use

Which is why ISPs could turn off the meter during the wee hours when the network is uncongested, to give home users an incentive to shift more of their bulk downloads (iTunes movies, BitTorrent movies, MMO updates, and operating system updates) to those hours. It's a compromise betwen how ISPs pay for bandwidth and what home users will understand.

They tried billing per simultaneous IP address a long time ago; the response to that was network address translation (NAT) boxes. ISPs would see only one computer, made by Linksys, NETGEAR, D-Link, etc. In order to truly bill per device, they'd need to employ even deeper packet inspection than they already do, including things like requiring installation of its TLS MITM's root certificate or requiring use of Trusted Network Connect (which gives the ISP administrative rights to your PC and locks out home use of free software operating systems). This is why your "modest proposal" won't work.

Don't be fooled into thinking AT&T won't add caps soon too - they've always had them here in Canada (Rogers here is AT&T) and they make a killing off the overage fees - I can't imagine they wouldn't want to apply that to a larger marker like the US; it's free money! Re "no one seems to care", I would guess the polititians are getting hand-out incentives to go for this. "If the company makes more they promise me more, and I can afford the unlimited plan (if they don't give it to me free anyway)!" Mat

My electric bill is $.98 if I don't use any electricity. My gas bill is $4 if I don't use any gas. My water bill is $2 if I don't use any water. Comcast wants to charge you what you're paying now (which is already making them a healthy profit), and add overages on top of that. They want the perks (heavy users paying more) without giving light users the benefit they deserve.

I'm fine with paying for my usage too, but the use charges need to be reasonable, and the base price needs to come down. We don't have enough competitive pressure in the US broadband market to keep prices in check.